The Highland Blend: Bluegrass’s Scottish Heritage

“And it's very strange, but I think there is something very common - not only in Celtic music - but there is a factor or element in Celtic music that is similar in music that we find in Japan, the United States, Europe, and even China and other Asian countries.” - Nobuo Uematsu

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Within walking distance of the Ness River sits one of Scotland’s most iconic pubs and music venues: Hootananny. A red sign announces it as a “ceilidh,” a traditional Scottish or Irish gathering with music, dance, and storytelling. The building’s Celtic architecture is punctuated with a decidedly emphatic red door. 

Inside is an impressive dark wooden bar with shelves of more bottles of whiskey than I’ve ever seen in my life. Crowded tables fill the cramped space, their surfaces covered with pints and baskets of fish and chips. 

But the centerpiece of the pub is a round table populated with local musicians who gather regularly to eat, drink, and play the music of their ancestors. Onlookers huddle around as Scottish fiddles, guitars, flutes, and accordions play traditional Celtic music. 

The songs occur organically with no clearly defined “song leader” taking charge.  Someone starts picking out the beginnings of a tune, and the others join in. 

This past weekend in Dahlonega, I saw an Americanized version of this very old Scottish tradition. 

The Appalachian Jam features local North Georgia musicians who descend upon the courthouse square to play the music of their heritage: bluegrass. 

The similarities between the two scenes are uncanny: both groups perform in a circle; both are composed of female and male musicians; both have musicians floating in and out of the group. 

Stringed instruments figure prominently in both gatherings -- fiddles, guitars, and the like. 

I saw the exact same protocol occur with the bluegrass group. New tunes began spontaneously with different members taking turns initiating them. 

There was one very prominent distinction between the two, however. While whiskey flowed around the table in Inverness, the Appalachian crew were strict tee-totalers (at least in public). 

It should come as no surprise that traditional Scottish music and bluegrass are so closely connected. The Appalachians and the Scottish Highlands are the same mountain range;  millions of years ago they were once connected as the Central Pangean Mountain. 

No wonder the Scottish immigrants felt comfortable settling into the Virginias, Kentucky, Tennessee, and North Carolina. The mountains they moved into were literally the mountains they had just fled. 

Religious persecution, economics, and the erosion of the clans forced them westward, and when they left, they took their folk traditions and music with them. As the generations became further removed from their roots, those cultural traditions changed. The square dance is really an offshoot of the Scottish Reel, and the lively rhythms and syncopation of the Highlands became integrated in a genre that would later be termed “bluegrass.”

Bluegrass was officially dubbed as such in the 1940s and was named for Bill Monroe and the Bluegrass Boys. Monroe asserted that bluegrass is "Scottish bagpipes and ole-time fiddlin'. It's a part of Methodist, Holiness and Baptist traditions. It's blues and jazz, and it has a high lonesome sound."

The “ole-time fiddlin’” can be found in traditional Celtic music and bluegrass, but the bagpipes are typically absent in both. Although they were used to supply music for dancing, bagpipes historically provided a battle cry and a warning to the enemy. Their military function would have most likely made them less than appealing for “ceilidhs.” And bagpipes that were brought to the States by the Scottish were unlikely to be repaired or reproduced. 

While it would be easy to paint bluegrass’s history in broad strokes of Scottish and Irish influence, such an assumption would leave out the contributions of so many other cultures. Bagpipes originated in the Middle East, and outside of Scotland, Pakistan is the biggest producer of the pipes. 

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The banjo, an integral component of “pickin’” in bluegrass, came to America with the slaves from West Africa. It’s easy to overlook the influence of non-white influences on bluegrass, but, as Ami Worthen asserts in her article “Repairing narratives: old-time and bluegrass music,” “Today I add my voice to the chorus of people singing the true story of old-time and bluegrass music. It is a marvelously multicultural story, wrought with pain and possibility.”

As a child, I found bluegrass  . . .  embarrassing. I tried to distance myself from it because all of that picking and twanging wasn’t cool. It was a very tangible reminder of my Appalachian Mountain roots which, try as I might, I could never escape. 

Now, as those closest to me begin disappearing slowly but steadily, I’m drawn back to it like a moth to a flame. I was caught up in the music at Hootananny and in Dahlonega, completely captivated by the haunting and plaintive syncopated narratives delivered with unabashed candor and openness. I found myself transported to twisting gravel roads, to a country church with a white pavilion out back, to open fields with wild strawberries. In short, it took me home. 

Bluegrass will never go out of style. Its popularity may ebb and flow, but the likes of  Gillian Welch, Alison Krauss, and Old Crow Medicine Show keep the tradition alive. And Sierra Ferrell whose genre-defying music blends bluegrass, country, old-time, among others, has started making the crossover into mainstream country music. 

The Highlands and the Appalachians find themselves once again united through music, another strong reason to embrace bluegrass and appreciate its place in our history. 

Alison Krauss (perhaps the queen of bluegrass) perfectly summed up bluegrass’s purpose : “You know, for most of its life bluegrass has had this stigma of being all straw hats and hay bales and not necessarily the most sophisticated form of music. Yet you can't help responding to its honesty. It's music that finds its way deep into your soul because it's strings vibrating against wood and nothing else.”

This article was originally published August 19, 2023 in the Southern Spice section of Times-Georgian.